PALESTINIAN POTTERY—KELSO AND THORLEY 371 
as scoops or dippers. In them coals were carried from one kitchen fire 
to another (Isaiah 30:14). They took the place of papyrus and in 
Samaria the Israelite government even used potsherds on which to 
write tax receipts. The precious Lachish letters which show us Hebrew 
writing from Jeremiah’s day are military correspondence written upon 
potsherds. One of the nuisance jobs of a Palestinian archeologist is 
the daily dusting of thousands upon thousands of potsherds to see if 
perchance any writing may be preserved upon them. So seldom does 
one find writing in Palestinian excavation that this is not a waste 
of labor. 
The final utilitarian end of broken pottery was to be ground up and 
mixed with waterproof plaster to be used for lining cisterns. Pot- 
sherds, however, were so numerous in antiquity that they constituted 
a good percentage of the debris of all ancient cities. There they speak 
their own language to the professional archeologist who digs them up 
today. They recount the history of the ancient cities where they lie. 
They date their historic vicissitudes, their economic prosperity, their 
cultural changes, the march of invading armies, the religious life of the 
people, the manufacturing skills of the times, the esthetic standards of 
the average man. In fact, they present a cross section of the world 
of the Bible. 
